On the home front: Local Marine Dies in Iraq

Wednesday, November 10, 2004
By DEAN BAKER, Columbian staff writer

Amanda Ries talks about her late husband, Staff Sgt. David Ries, shown in a family photo at top, in their apartment in Vancouver on Tuesday. David Ries, 29, was killed with two other Marines when a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee in combat at Fallujah. (KIM BLAU/The Columbian)

A 29-year-old Vancouver Marine reservist was killed Monday when a roadside bomb exploded and tore apart his Humvee as thousands of U.S. troops stormed into Fallujah.

    Staff Sgt. David George Ries, a 1993 graduate of Evergreen High School and a 10-year veteran of the Marine Corps, was among about a dozen American troops killed in the early fighting for the insurgents' stronghold.

    The one-time high school runner and expert marksman left Vancouver for his second tour in Iraq on Aug. 31, said his wife, Amanda Jean, 24.

    Ries is also survived by a 4-year-old son, Bailey, and a daughter, Camryn, 2.

    Ries, a generator operator and a convoy leader, was riding in the passenger seat of a Humvee on his way back from the center of the city when the bomb went off, said Marine Sgt. Ken McNulty, 25, one of Ries' friends. The incident happened at 4:30 p.m. Iraq time, or 4:30 a.m. Pacific Time, officials said.

    The improvised explosive device, or IED, killed Ries and two other Marines, whose names were withheld pending notification of kin, said Marine Capt. Vince Dawson. Dawson is commanding officer of Headquarters and Supply Co., 6th Engineer Support Battalion, of Swan Island in Portland, Ries' home unit.

    "It's a nightmare," said Amanda Ries. "I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it."

    McNulty and three other Marines from Swan Island came to Amanda's apartment door in the Vancouver mall area Monday at 7 p.m. and told her of her husband's death.

    Amanda's roommate, Tasha Johnson, answered the door. The Marines told Amanda to sit down.

    "They said, 'We have bad news,'" she said Tuesday. "It's a shock. The worst nightmare ever. It's indescribable. It's hard to take in. It wasn't supposed to be like this. This wasn't supposed to happen to me."

    What's hardest for her is seeing Bailey's reaction.

    "Bailey was saying, 'Daddy's in Iraq shooting the bad guys,'" said Amanda. "Then I knew I couldn't take it."

    Ries had been working in a Portland shooting gallery called A Place to Shoot while serving in the Marine Reserve. A call came for specialists who knew how to place and operate diesel electric generators, and he volunteered for a second tour in June, Dawson said.

    He was called up just four days later and, after several weeks of training, left for Iraq on Aug. 31, the couple's second wedding anniversary.

    "He was a generator operator, which is rare in the Marines, and he volunteered, which was a heroic thing to do," said Dawson.

    He did his first tour in Iraq last year.

    Amanda described her husband as a strong leader, wonderful husband and father and great friend.

    "He was my soul mate. He was funny, and he loved to be around his friends. He loved to drink beer," she said, drawing a rare ripple of laughter from a somber crowd in her apartment Tuesday afternoon.

    Brent Loper, Ries' childhood buddy, told The Associated Press that Ries "believes in what this country stands for and the general purpose that we're there ... to give people a shot at making their own choices."

    "He'll go out of his way to help you," Loper said.

    Friends said he'd talked about becoming a police officer or working with corrections when he got out of the Marines.

    "He was a great guy, a great Marine," said McNulty, who knew Ries for five years.

    Besides his immediate family, his survivors include his parents, David and Jean Ries, formerly of Vancouver but now of Amarillo, Texas; Amanda's mother, Debbie Hutter, of Longview; her father, Les Hutter, who is living in Louisiana, and Amanda's sister, Adale, of Salem, Ore. Ries had no brothers or sisters.

    A 1997 graduate of R.A. Long High School in Longview, Amanda quit her job two weeks ago as a bartender at C.J.'s Grill in Battle Ground to stay home and care for her children. At work, she showed photos of her husband. Together the employees all sent him a card recently, said Greg Hurley, the manager.

    "A lot of our customers knew her, and to hear about this just sends chills through us all," he said.

    Along with her roommate, several other friends gathered in her apartment, including Christina Keith of Rainier, Ore. Another friend, Heather Mortensen of Phoenix, planned to fly in Tuesday night.

    The Marines, Dawson and McNulty, stood vigil in Amanda's apartment.

    "I'm very confused, and lost, and very well supported," said Amanda.

    She last talked to her husband Thursday.

    "He said he had just got back from a convoy and was getting ready to go on another. He said he needed to stay strong and focused on what he was doing," she said.

    "I heard from him about every other day by phone or e-mail," she said.

    David Ries is the second Clark County serviceman to die in Iraq. Another was killed in Kuwait.

    Marine Lance Cpl. Kane Funke, a 2003 Heritage High School graduate, was killed by an incendiary device in Iraq on Aug. 13.

    Marine Lance Cpl. Cedric E. Bruns, a 2000 graduate of Prairie High School, died in May 2003 when his Humvee collided with a truck in Kuwait